Did I Miss Out? Regrets, Dreams & Life Advice

Chris (00:02.386)

So she said she wasn't going to pay it, she'd drive it to Portland.

Chris (00:12.201)

That's the last I heard. She was gonna do that. Yeah.

So I did all the washing, I did everything, got everything. Then Mary came, things changed.

I don't know. They'd be in here talking, I'd go in there. Pretty soon they'd be in there and I'd come in here. Atencio-Kadie and my mom? Yeah, and Jim. Jim, he always, he has to get right in the middle of it too, you know. Atencio-So I, I'm curious if there are, basically I'm asking permission, are there any?

topics or things that you don't want to talk about or I can't ask you about? Nothing of. Okay. Because I have, I don't like, these are the things that you could call me weird or people might call me weird, but I feel like the things that I feel like I think about death more than the average person does. I don't know how often people think about it, but I'll give you an example.

I read, it was a book that my dad had given me once, and I didn't read it until after he died, but it's called Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. It's an older book. I don't know if you've heard of that before. No. But he has the seven, one of the seven habits is start with the end in mind.

Chris (01:43.886)

And what he says in the book is the ultimate end is your funeral. So he says everybody, this is his advice in the book. And this again was a book that my dad gave me. So I'm like, hmm, I wonder. And he gave it to me when I was in high school. And I just sat on my nightstand, never read it until a couple years after he died, you know. And I was like, hmm, I wonder if my dad had thought about this at all.

Chris (02:13.68)

It is very valuable to go through and write out, when I die, like he actually says to almost imagine it, that you walk into a church and you're in a church and you're imagining that there's a eulogy that you're listening to and you don't know who this is for. And it turns out that you go up and look in the casket and you're inside the casket. So you're getting to imagine listening to your own eulogy, right? So my question is...

How often would you say you think about death? And do you think about it more now than you did before? Or do you not think about it? Or? I don't think I think about it anymore. Right. How often, like, have you spent much time thinking about death? I don't know if you think, if you consider death. I just think about all the guys that I've worked with and I've been around, and none of them are here now. I don't know if you think about death, but.

Chris (03:14.726)

I can't think of a one that's here now. The only one that's even is Norman Meyer.

Chris (03:28.63)

He don't know whether he's coming or going. He's just lost his mind? Yeah.

And he's about the same age as you? Yeah. We was in the same class the other day.

Chris (03:46.246)

Outside of that, I think everybody else is gone.

Chris (03:53.91)

Does it, do you like, I would imagine there's like, again, tell me if any of these, like there's a very good chance that I could start crying. Maybe I make you start crying, I don't know. Then that's not the intention. The intention is like, I'm genuinely trying to.

maybe save myself pain later in life. If I'm, if I talking to people that are wiser and older and have done things and maybe you have, you know, thoughts of like the things that you really enjoyed or you're grateful that you did and the things that you wish you would have done or the things you wish you would have said or whatever, you know, but to me, something- Well, you're talking to the wrong guy when you've talked about somebody that's wiser. Ha ha ha.

Chris (04:41.01)

But for me, I think one thing that's interesting is everybody wants to live a long life, right? Like that generally people- I would imagine, yeah. Everybody does. But I think one thing that is that you are probably one of the few people I know that could speak to this is that-

Your life, obviously, who you talk to and hang out with changes. And the longer you live, the longer, the higher chance that your good friends are gone, your spouse is gone. And so your life, kind of the purpose and the meaning and what you spend your time doing.

Changes, but you don't think about that when you're when you're 20 and thinking I want to live forever Yeah, you don't think well living forever quote unquote or living to be a hundred Means that you know, there's a few people that want to die though. Oh Yeah Barbara lamb was that oh really? Yeah, and what point in her life was that I? Don't know exactly how old she was she was in her eighties

Chris (05:47.415)

But.

Chris (05:51.142)

They gave her some medicine to, she had headaches, and they give her some medicine for headaches, and it took all the calcium out of her bones. And she said, all I did was, she drops up one on the floor. I bent over to pick it up, and I broke two ribs. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And she started to shrivel up to, so she said she wanted to die.

Chris (06:19.306)

She was a nice lady too. And that was the, she was also same age as you, but she would have died like? No, no, she was older than me. Okay, so when you were in your 70s or something, you remember her? Yeah, yeah. We lived right next door, I don't know. She was always cooking something or baking, like she would bake a pie, you know? And she would say, I can't eat at all. Do you want some of it? I'd say, sure.

Okay, she says, meet me out at the fence. That's all. Oh wow. See there's just- This was on the Rastrum house? Yeah, that was just a fence in between us. Go out there at the fence and she'd give me cookies or whatever she was cooking. That's awesome. She's a nice lady.

Chris (07:08.782)

Do you think about, and again, I'm assuming you could say, no, you've never thought about this, but that prompt of imagining what people are going to say about you, have you ever spent time thinking of like, what are the characteristics or the memories or the things that people will say about you at your funeral? I'm glad he's gone, probably. It all depends on who it is, you know?

Chris (07:49.112)

I don't think I've got any enemies. I mean, I like just about everybody.

Chris (08:02.274)

So you'd say that you strove, or is it safe to say, that you strove to be a likable or... Well, I don't try to be, I just be what I am. Okay, tell me about that. There ain't nothing to say, I just am what I am, and that's just it, you know. Right.

Chris (08:30.038)

that bunch in there for coffee. This only happened once. But I was telling them about something about years ago or something like that. Not a one of them knew what the hell I was talking about. I told them all, I said, you guys are all dumber than hell, you don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I said, I've never said that. They just laughed. They just...

Chris (09:03.746)

We had a pretty good crowd in there today for coffee. Oh yeah?

Chris (09:10.474)

post-Thanksgiving rush? Anytime that Kelly Hughes comes over, he kind of livens up the party. How old is Kelly Hughes? Is he a musician? I'm not really sure how old he is. Is he a musician? Yeah. He's the Kelly Hughes band or something like that? Yeah. Yeah, okay.

Chris (09:30.358)

What were you going to say about him? He's a real good entertainer. I mean, he's...

Chris (09:38.686)

everyone's laughing the whole time? Well, he gets everybody in the building, he gets everybody going, you know? Yeah. He's just a good entertainer.

Chris (09:57.366)

So another thing that I think about, and again, I feel not everybody, I'm acknowledging that not everybody probably is motivated or driven in the same way that I am.

But I would say that I have goals, aspirations, things that I want to accomplish, you know, and like building a business or taking my family on a vacation, having kids, getting to see them get married, all that stuff, you know. And...

I have recently heard that it's important to make sure that whatever your aspirations are in life, it's good to have specific goals, but you need to make sure that you're picking goals that you can never actually achieve, if that makes sense. Because it's a never-ending pursuit, right? If you check all the boxes on what you're trying to accomplish in life, then you get to 60 or 50 or whatever.

and did everything I wanted to do, and now what? So you still have to discover like, what's that thing that is going to, that's going to fulfill and be like something to motivate you for your whole life? Does that make sense? As opposed to like, I want to buy this house, and that's like all you're fixated on, and then you get the house and it's like, okay, now what? You know? I always wanted to go to Germany, but I never did make it.

Chris (11:29.614)

I mean, after I came home from the war, I mean, for the war, after I came home from the Army, now I wanted to go back over there, but I never did make it.

Chris (11:43.01)

How long has that been, would you say that was like a dream or a goal of yours? Well, just a dream. Liz is going over there. And I showed her a picture. See my dad's dad, sort of be my grandpa, he came from Germany. And they were in the beer business over there. They got, that picture was back early.

Big cakes of beer are barrels. Oh yeah. How about each one of them barrels? Whole.

500 gallons. Oh, yeah, they're big barrels And there's four or five my grandpa and about four or five other guys all standing in front of them And There was a lot of keefer's over there And I'd always like I always kind of wanted to go back and see And there's a tavern over there called keefer's really yeah

Do you know which city it's in? It's Frankfurt. Interesting. That's a big city. But, uh, Delbert Wachtel seen it. He was there. He was telling me about it. Oh, really? Yeah.

Chris (13:08.47)

So that's one thing. Is there any other like, any things that you accomplished that you remember being 30? Cause again, I'm 33. So like, what do you recall like the aspirations, the things, the places you wanted to go, the experiences that you wanted to have that you did achieve and you were grateful for? Well, the only thing, but the only thing I really did was build that house there in Raftram.

That was a big project? Well, it was for me, when you don't know what you're doing. Yeah.

Chris (13:48.502)

But I stumbled through it. How did you learn how to do all that? I didn't. They just did it. You just started whatever made sense? Yeah.

Chris (14:03.25)

I had a guy come over and he was kind of rough-endled. And the way I had it done, you walk in the back door and you go downstairs. There's no landing there or nothing.

That's the way I had it done. But he changed all that. Oh, really? Well, he had to. And you just can't walk in the back door and go down the basement. Right.

Chris (14:38.178)

That was Chet Hattenberg. He's a pretty good guy.

Chris (14:44.558)

I worked with this kid in the woods.

Chris (14:51.186)

I was about the only one that would solve with him.

Chris (14:56.726)

He told me, he says, you know, if you're starting out sawing with a guy, you better, I always figured that I screw him before he gets a chance to screw me. Yeah, ain't that an attitude now to have? But it didn't bother me that much. That's an interesting way to go through life. Yeah, Connie was gonna fire him one. Seems like you make a lot of enemies. Yeah.

Well there wasn't hardly anybody who would saw with him. Connie was going to fire him. He started crying. He wanted his job back. They lived together in Twin Lakes. Oh wow. They knew, you know, they were about the same age and all that stuff.

Chris (15:47.862)

What other accomplishments, when you look back, are you most proud of or grateful for? Oh, I raised five kids. Yeah. That's about as good as you can get. Yeah. Of course, Betty, she did probably most of it.

Chris (16:10.578)

I was up in camp. Logging? Yeah. See, we stayed in camp up there.

Chris (16:21.642)

I stayed in there for the first eight years that I worked in the woods. We stayed in camp.

Chris (16:33.31)

And how long per stay? Like you'd go there for how long and then come back and then stay for how long? Oh, well, once in a while we'd come back probably on a Wednesday night, once in a while. Sometimes we stayed there all week. Just come home on the weekends. Just, however the job was.

Chris (16:56.69)

And when did you retire? Like when were you totally done logging? Well, it kind of helped me when I got that tree on my knee.

I fell a tree and it was just, all it was, the place had been logged and they was going to burn it. So Connie wanted me to go down there and just knock down all the stuff that hadn't been knocked down. So I fell this one little tree and it went over and it hit two other trees and it was just like a—I didn't even notice, I just figured it'd gone through. But it was just like an arrow.

picked up my saw and I started walking, that thing, them two trees shot that thing back and hit me in the knee. Oh wow. Yeah. And so then that, shortly after you had to retire? That was just about, it was in the 80s, so it was about time. And then Connie, he got screwed up. He always bragged about this.

bookkeeper he had, how much money that guy was saving him and stuff like that. Well, he did save Connie a lot of money, but in the long run.

The government got on him and took everything Connie owned. Oh, wow.

Chris (18:23.658)

He had to sell all of his equipment.

All the land he bought.

He had to dump all that stuff. The government took it all.

because he was avoiding paying taxes?

He didn't avoid the pain him. He just was it was just like he did all the saws Yeah, he took saw rental from me and all the saws He didn't have he didn't put a nickel in that saw But if he took saw rental he got that he got to count that as Taxes he took that off on his taxes. See. Oh, so if you count all the saws

Chris (19:10.206)

And he did that with lots of other stuff too, that bookkeeper.

Chris (19:16.878)

Connie, he just kept bragging that guy up, bragging him up. Next thing he knew, the government had him.

Chris (19:28.278)

Do you think about like, you can tell me if this is just a weird question, that's totally fine, but I'm thinking like, do you have like an objective or a goal or any things that you like, I don't, like at some point, how long do you think you can or do you want to live? I never, you give that a thought.

Because it started and I don't have no I'm too damn old to have some Plan of doing something or going someplace or doing something like that can't see anyway, you know, yeah

Chris (20:10.895)

I don't give stuff like that. I don't even think about stuff like that.

Because that's the one thing that I'm like, I guess I would say, what is- Well, you're young enough to do it though. I mean- I know, but I'm saying that the thing that's amazing to me in this, like, honestly, the reason when I came over here, I was like, we have to get grandpa internet. Because to me, it's like, and you probably just laugh because half the things you don't even know exist or can happen, but like, so much of my life and my business and everything involves the internet.

And if I didn't have the internet, it would be like putting me in jail. Oh, is that right? Because there's just so like the number of things that happen now are just it's crazy. And I feel like there's something about how you live that is like I aspire to, or I want to be more disconnected or at peace with all the chaos and the busyness. You know what I mean? But it's hard to because

My life is involved with all this technology. And I don't know, I feel like there's something about, like for you to say that you don't spend any energy or time thinking about that, my mind's like, well, what do you think about? Because I got- I can't think about it anyway because they don't do any good. I mean, here, had coffee here, oh, it was yesterday morning. Terry, Mark, oh, and I think it was Walt Meyer.

All for him, just sitting there looking at her phone, doing something with her phone. Finally I said, holy hell, can't you guys do something else besides just sit there looking at that damn phone?

Chris (22:00.182)

I got through life without it. Why can't they get a half an hour without it? Yeah. And now is that coffee? Yeah.

Chris (22:14.718)

John Klingerman, he's really good. But he, every time somebody asks a question or something like that, nobody knows, he's, breaks that phone out.

Chris (22:29.65)

And does what? He'll tell you what the answer is. Oh, to get the answer? Yeah. Ha ha ha. It is crazy now that, I mean, there's some pretty remarkable stuff that technology is doing. And yeah, I feel like I am blown away by it. So you have to, there's things that I've showed you. And I know that you are in disbelief that exists, right? Yeah.

So I'm telling you that there's things that I encounter and I cannot believe that it exists. So the layers of how rapidly stuff is developing is crazy. It's absolutely insane. And I do think that there's more... I've heard a statistic that there's more depression, anxiety, suicides, everything now than there were 30 years ago, 40 years ago, 50 years ago.

And I think it's because of like what you're saying, people are so wrapped up in their phones and it's giving you a fake sense of being connected to people. But you're not actually just talking to the person that's in front of you at the grocery store or next to you in the restaurant or wherever you are. Everyone's just talking virtually to people that are on the other side of the world. But it's not...

The only thing I think about is like these college kids playing basketball, they're starting to pay them. Eventually it's going to kill, I think it's going to kill the sport. That's what, stuff like that. Like Timmy, he played for Gonzaga. He made 700 and some thousand dollars a year playing for Gonzaga.

He made more money then than he's making now. Yeah.

Chris (24:36.39)

I think it's going to kill the sport.

Have you, do you have any experiences or stories of people that you feel were pursuing wealth or money that you personally know that like corrupted them or ruined their life because of that? Connie Roth is the only one I know of that, he was really doing good. Oh yeah. Until he got that guy. One year, Connie took 60 million feet on a Coraline.

60 million feet of trees? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, logs.

Chris (25:14.966)

That's a lot of wood. Clendenin That's how many different loggers and stuff he had? Clendenin It was just him. Clendenin Oh, he did it personally? Clendenin Not personally, no. Clendenin He worked for him. Clendenin Yeah, all the guys sawing for him, skidding. Clendenin But he got, I would say, he wasn't like corrupted by money. He just thought he was doing good and then had avoided taxes. Clendenin He was kind of corrupted by it, too.

He wanted to be better than anybody else around.

Chris (25:55.883)

He gave the University of Idaho a thousand dollars every year, just the football team. He liked football.

Chris (26:10.954)

And he'd put on parties and there were ten, fifteen guys out. He'd spend all the money for them and all that stuff. Then you go for him and say, you want a nickel or log more? No, no, I can't afford it. No.

Chris (26:34.346)

I never should have stayed there in the woods. I should have quit. Clendenin Why do you say that? Dzwigalski Because he screwed me out of my Social Security. Clendenin So whose Social Security do you get now? Dzwigalski I get Social Security, but I would have got twice—I would have got—I only get a thousand something now. Clendenin Okay. Dzwigalski If Connie hadn't have screwed me out of it, I'd get two thousand and something, see?

Just twice as much. Does Betty's retirement or anything, or did she have a retirement? Oh, yeah. So do you get that also or no? Well, she, uh, she, uh,

You can't get them both. You either gotta take the retirement or social security. Ah, okay. And I think she took the social security. She got a lump sum of, but I just give that to the kids. Terry got some of it.

Chris (27:35.926)

So she took the lumps or when she died, you guys took the lumps and then distributed and that was the end of the payouts on that? Yeah.

Chris (27:46.038)

I never did go into Social Security. Like if I died, she got half of my Social Security, which wouldn't have been a hell of a lot. But I don't know if when she dies, I don't know if I would get half of hers or not. But see, I never did go into Social Security.

Chris (28:07.414)

So I don't know what the hell.

Chris (28:13.044)

So my mind always goes, when's the last time you flew in an airplane? It was in 86. For what? I came home from Alaska. I was up there taking out a telephone office.

Chris (28:34.946)

I did one in—I think I did one in 1982, and then I went back in 1986 to take out another one. In 1982 we made a little bit of money, but when I got there in 1986 they were saying, well we're going to save this, we're going to save this. Well it just didn't really amount to a hell of a lot then.

Chris (29:02.346)

I just put it in, had trucks come in, I just loaded the trucks and that was it.

Chris (29:15.77)

My mind goes, like I feel like I can think of a dozen ways to make this happen, but would you, and again there's lots of details, but if the opportunity presented itself to go visit Germany, would you go? I can't see. Well you could still, you know, since ago and now. You can see some stuff. Oh, you could drink the beer at the Keepers Tavern. Yeah, yeah, if we could find it.

Frankfurt's an awful big town. But there's the internet now. Well, that's right. That changes things. Yeah. Because my thought is, I have a couple ideas, but I have a couple friends that live in Germany. But there's also the hardest part, or the most uncomfortable part, would be the plane ride. It's a long plane ride. But.

The other option would be taking a boat over, like a cruise ship or something, which would be more comfortable. It would just take a lot longer. Like I don't actually know how long it takes to cross the Atlantic. A cruise ship would probably take you a week. Yeah, I was going to say seven, eight days. When we went over, it took us eleven days. But we was in kind of a small ship too.

Chris (30:43.554)

But are you, I guess what I'm saying, is there any reason you couldn't fly?

Not done off. Okay. I was wondering if there was any, I'm just curious, like, I feel like, this is how, like, so many things in my life, I don't know where I get this from, but it's just like, well, why the hell not? Like, what's the, if we can do it and we can make it happen, like, why would we not try to do it, you know? Because there's lots of creative ways to- Well, that was my problem. See, I never could-

make up enough money and quit my job long enough to go over there.

Chris (31:30.014)

And why do you think, like when you reflect back on that, when you say I could never quit my job, was it you putting pressure on yourself or was it bills or what was the thing that was, was it fear of like not having enough money? No.

Chris (31:48.927)

I just didn't, I couldn't do it all and pay my taxes and all that stuff too, see.

Chris (31:59.55)

What years would this have been? Would this have been something that you would have gone over with Betty, or was this after Betty was gone? It was before—I was thinking about—I would have liked to have went over right after I got out of the Army. Oh, yeah? But I couldn't do it. In what year did you get out of the Army? In 1953. Okay. Yeah, in—

Might've been right at the end of 52. And when did you get married?

Chris (32:32.178)

in 53. Oh, okay. So your initial idea was go before you got married, or was it going to be like a honeymoon thing? No, it was going to be like, and I couldn't even give it a thought then.

Chris (32:50.99)

And then I was working for Ohio Match.

What did we get? Oh. $110 every two weeks.

You ain't gonna go very far on that. And have kids coming and... You got $110? Every two weeks. For what? For working at a wild match. Oh wow. That was your first job after the military? Yeah. That was, I was working there when I went into the service. So when I come out of the service, you get the same job back. Yeah. What did you get paid when you were in the army?

comparatively was like well you get seventy two dollars but i took my dad he had a heart attack so i took fifty dollars a month and said i want to send it home or for your family to use yeah

Chris (33:51.646)

and you were getting $72 a day, a week, or month? What was the period? A month. You got $72 a month for being in the military and you'd send 50 of it to your families because your dad was sick? Yeah.

And then when you, when did he end up passing away? He passed away in seven and 57. So I'm trying to do the math. So you would have, were you basically helping support him up until he died? No, he was, he was working. Oh, he was able to go back to work after the heart attack? Yeah. Okay.

Chris (34:33.798)

That's really probably what gave him the heart attack, working on them damn buses.

Chris (34:42.978)

That's what his job was. He was a bus driver, but he also was, he had to keep all the buses running. And he, like in the wintertime, he'd close all the doors and then start up one or two of them buses. Oh, just breathe in the carbon monoxide? Yeah, and it would come on so slow, he wouldn't even know what he's doing. Some guy would come out there and...

walk in that building I said what the hell you doing Bill open up them doors. Oh man.

Chris (35:23.318)

What else can you tell me besides, so Frankfurt, the Kiefer's Tavern, where was, do you know where the military base was? No, Wild Flicken. Wild Flicken? That was the base? I kind of thought, I kind of thought it was kind of in the...

The YAH!

Northeast end, Germany. Okay. You know, I was talking to a guy, he lives there in town, but he was talking about being in the Army over there in Germany, and he says, we went on maneuvers. I said, where'd you go on maneuvers? He says, we went up to Wild Flicken. Wild Flicken, hell, I stayed there for over a year.

He was going to do maneuvers up in Wild Flickin'.

Chris (36:26.986)

And that was the city or that was the name of the base? No, just the name of the base. Yeah. Okay. But it was a good one, boy, I tell you. They really had good barracks over there. And this was a German base that the U.S. took over? Yeah. But the Germans had made it? Yeah.

And so when you were there, did you stay in the barracks or you just visited it? No, stayed in the barracks. Okay. For over a year. Yeah, that was good. That's, they were 10 times better than barracks here in the states. Oh really? Yeah. And what was the years that this was? Well, I went in 50.

That's when you, so 50 to 52? Huh? 50 to 52? Yeah, yeah. Right at the end of 52. Did they keep you in like people from North Idaho were all in the same group? Yeah, all of us guys stayed pretty much the same. I was with my cousin. He was just in another barracks but we was all right there together, you know? Yeah. Jim Hatch.

Did you meet any other people from all over the country? Oh yeah, hell yeah. Anyone that you stayed in contact with? No, I didn't stay in contact with one of them.

Chris (37:56.81)

What year was, did Hitler get killed? Do you remember? No. Was that way before? I can't even remember. I think he poisoned himself. But what year was that? Oh, I don't know. Get the phone. When did Hitler die?

1945. Yeah. So, how old you would have been? You must know when the war was over. You were born in 25, what year? I was born in 27. 27, so you were 18 then? Yeah. Do you remember, like did you guys hear stories of Hitler when you were in high school and grade school? Oh yeah, oh yeah, sure. What do you remember about that?

Chris (38:46.858)

Like what was the first story that you remember? What was the first time? He was the head man of Germany if he told them. And that was it? Yeah. There wasn't, you didn't know anything about the terrible stuff that they were doing? Or maybe a little bit?

Chris (39:01.954)

I didn't know he'd done anything. He was just kind of like the president of Germany. The guy over Russia, he was worse than Hitler. Or who was in Russia? Stalin. Stalin, yeah, yeah. So you guys did talk about that in school, or you heard hear a lot of things about it? Not too much, no. OK.

Chris (39:23.538)

And when did the war start? Would that have been when you were... About 41, wasn't it? What year did World War II start?

Chris (39:36.202)

1939? No. Does that not sound right? What's that? That's what it says.

Chris (39:50.723)

When did the Japanese... It was 1939 to 1945 was the war. The bombing of Pearl Harbor. Yeah. They didn't bomb Pearl Harbor in 39, did they? Let's see, Pearl Harbor date. 1941.

Yeah. So maybe that's when the U.S. got involved. That's right. But it had been going for two years before that. Oh yeah, sure, yeah. Oh yeah, Germany was taking over other countries, see. And then they got into—when they started fighting England, that's when we started sending over all this—sending a lot of—

tanks and trucks and everything else over to England and uh

didn't have no guns or anything on them ships, and the goddamn Germans, some of the Germans was sending them to the bottom, and you never even heard about that. Really? Yeah, until afterwards, you know. Yeah. And here was- These were American soldiers that were getting sunk? American, yeah, American ships. Oh, wow. I just seen it on television the other day about-

the Japanese sending them bombs over by the air, on air, by the balloons. And I always did wonder how in the hell they could regulate them balloons. But they could do it some way if the balloon got too high, they'd let out some air. And if the balloon got too low—

Chris (41:46.854)

They dropped some weights.

And they could do that when that damn balloon was halfway over here, you know. They had some way of doing it. Wow. Them Japs are a little smarter than we were. And they've dropped bombs on American soil? Sure. Didn't you know that? I didn't know that. I mean, maybe I learned at some point, but I forgot, obviously. Mostly over there around Seattle. Oh, OK. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah.

But that was one thing there that they didn't know. They had no idea where that bomb was gonna land. They just knew they were in the approximate area. And they said there was one bomb that could've really, might've even changed the war a little bit.

but it didn't land in, it just barely missed wherever it's going to hit, you know. Just in the middle of nowhere in the forest or something? Yeah.

Chris (43:01.29)

Hey, them Japs were pretty smart, I think.

Chris (43:15.202)

How the hell did they know that wind was gonna go right from Japan right over to Seattle? Yeah, who knows. Do you have any other, this is a question I always ask in my sales calls, but if you could wave a magic wand and do whatever you wanted in the remaining time you have, what other crazy things, and these are just like, you know, ridiculous stuff.

It doesn't matter if it can happen or not, but what are some crazy things besides Germany that would be like, well, if I had magical powers, I would do X, Y, and Z? First I'd be able to see.

Chris (44:03.114)

Brett, he looked in his phone and he said there was a guy in Germany, I think, he said that could make blind people see.

Chris (44:13.678)

I said, well, let's go over to Germany, Brett.

Chris (44:20.587)

What else?

Chris (44:25.846)

Well, that's about it. If a guy could see, you could do anything, you know, from then. But if you can't see, that kind of limits you.

Chris (44:38.134)

There's blind people like... Katie, like, Katie, I don't know, we got to talk and I said, hell, I can't see nothing out of my right eye. And she didn't know that. Oh, yeah? She said, how do you get around just seeing out of one eye? I said, well, hell, there's lots of people who just got one eye.

I was going to say there's quite a few blind people that still do a lot of stuff. Yeah, I...

Chris (45:11.146)

This was probably ten, twelve years ago. I'd seen on television where this guy said that he didn't know for sure that if they give his sight back, he didn't know for sure if he'd take it. Because he could do his work, and he says, his wife will always be young.

Chris (45:40.066)

They're growing up and you're not even looking at them. I mean, you're not even seeing them. Yeah.

Chris (45:48.478)

Alright, last question for today, cause then I gotta go, but what would you say? In like, what do you look forward to when you get up every day? Well, when I look, when I get up, I look forward to going in and have coffee. Yeah. Just BSing with them guys. That's about it. There ain't much to look forward to. Well, that's right. To me, I'm like...

And again, I hope that this is more of a wondering question, like, tell me how you do this or how does your mind work. But I told you joking about the internet, right? If I didn't have the internet, it would feel like jail. I was just running through currently, and again, I'm not saying this as like it's not supposed to be offensive in any way. I'm just genuinely trying to understand.

But if someone took away internet, took away my eyesight, took away my car, and I wasn't able to go anywhere unless someone came to my house and got me, or I didn't know when people were gonna come, they just would come when they wanna go. That sounds like prison to me. Like it sounds like I would struggle to do anything. It takes a while to get used to it, I can tell you that.

And how do you get used to it? Or what do you do with that? There's nothing else you can do. You just... And that's right, to me, I'm like... That's just the way it is. So having the... You know what I always wished that when... When all this stuff first come out, I wish that I bought the first one to come out. What stuff? Computers, everything. Oh yeah, mm-hmm. All that kind of stuff.

You wish you would have bought the first one. Yeah, and you just kept right on going. Then I'd be up there as smart as you. Yeah. But you didn't. So you're saying you regret that now because you feel like yeah, a lot of stuff you could do, but you don't know how. Hell, them guys, Terry, he's had that phone for I don't know how long. And there's lots and lots of stuff he don't know how to do yet. Yeah. Mark.

Chris (48:13.33)

Every once in a while he'll ask John, well today he asked that Chance Meyer, how do you do this, you know, Chance told him.

And Marks?

had them phones for a long time, you know. Yeah. The thing is that's interesting is that the most important skill to have is the skill to figure out how to do what you don't know how to do. Yeah. Because with the internet, it's now like, it's pretty crazy. Like I'll show you, this is an example of, there's a new thing, so artificial intelligence. Have you heard about that at all? No, no.

So when you think of artificial intelligence, what do you think of?

Chris (49:02.19)

I don't even know what the hell it is. What kind of, how can you think of it? Yeah, so it's basically a cluster of computers that has indexed all the text that we've ever written. So everything, just had all of the, everything that's ever been on the internet. It's all incorporated into this. You can ask it any question you want and it will generate a response back and like ridiculous questions like,

Today the kids were home sick, so I was trying to tell the kids that they needed to take naps, but they were like, we don't want to. I'm like, you need to rest so your body can recover. But the kids are two, four, and six years old. They don't understand that. So I asked this thing called Chat GPT, it's an AI bot that you can talk to, and I said, can you tell me a, make up a story. This is what I told it to do.

Make up a story that involves Ellie, Gabe, and Cecilia as the characters. They're homesick from school, their mom wants them to rest, and they don't understand the importance of rest to get better. And incorporate some like magical characters and whatnot to explain why your body needs rest to fight off the disease.

And so it told him a story, just made it up on the spot with them in it. Yeah. And it was talking about white blood cells and how you go in and your body... Do they know what white blood cells are though? Well, they just... the way that it described it was that there was this magical kingdom that was your immune system. Oh, I see. And there were these bad guys that came in that were the disease and the white blood cells were like infantry or cavalry that were going and attacking. Yeah. So it made that whole thing up.

and it just would read back to them. So for example, think what's like, tell me just a ridiculous question, like something like absurd or weird, not necessarily like a fact question, but just like, I don't know, it could be anything. How do you start a business? How do you...

Chris (51:09.058)

talk to someone that you don't know, how do you, like whatever, whatever the random thing is. Can you think of anything weird to ask it? No. Like I'm trying to think of...

Chris (51:28.174)

be a... what was something that you guys were talking about in coffee today?

Chris (51:35.53)

We talked about a little bit of everything.

Chris (51:40.918)

yet kelly hughes he's always coming up with some damn thing

Chris (51:52.938)

he started going with this girl. First he had a picture of her and he brought her over and he showed me the picture and I said, Jesus, she's a keeper.

And I think he told her that or something. Anyway, he's still going with her. And he's going to bring her over Friday. At four o'clock. Oh, here? No. Oh, to coffee? CJ's. Okay. Do you go to coffee at four every day too? No, no, just on Fridays when Brett comes over. Do you go in the morning on Fridays or just afternoon? Yeah, no, every day, every day.

Thanks to you, and Christmas, and everything, every day. I'm trying to think, so like...

Chris (52:42.846)

I'm going to, you'll hear me ask the question and then I'll let you hear, or it'll read back the response. But I'm like, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go home and research the best way to travel to find like, how would you, how do you, how do I get, how do I take my grandpa who's 96 over to a different country to minimize like, you know, what would be the things to, that would be a concern, like a lot of walking, make sure that comfortable place to sleep, like the best way to travel.

to, you know what I mean, like all of those things. So listen to this.

Chris (53:21.478)

I would like to take my grandpa who is 96 to Germany to see some of the places that he served when he was in the war back in the 1940s and 50s period. I also would like to minimize any level of discomfort that could happen on the trip for someone that is 96. What recommendations do you have and what other questions do you have for me to provide the best recommendation?

Chris (53:55.118)

Taking your grandpa to Germany to revisit the places he served is a thoughtful and significant journey. To ensure his comfort and safety, here are a few recommendations. One, medical clearance and health preparations. First and foremost, get medical clearance from his doctor. Discuss the trip and any necessary medications or health precautions.

Two, travel insurance. Opt for comprehensive travel insurance that covers medical emergencies and trip cancellations. Three, comfortable accommodations. Choose accommodations that are senior friendly with amenities like elevators, easy bathroom access, and close to the sites you plan to visit. Four, transportation. Look for comfortable transportation options. Renting a car with a smooth ride or using trains with first-class seats can make a difference. Five, pace of the trip.

Chris (54:50.817)

It's going to keep going on with stuff like that. That's a random example there. You could also say like, oh, here's an interesting one. I don't know what it's going to say to this.

Chris (55:04.338)

My grandpa is 96 and recently got an Amazon Alexa and has also never worked or had a source of income other than Social Security for the last 20 years. What ideas do you have for ways that he could potentially generate income online using the internet at his age given the fact that he has limited knowledge of how to use computers and computers?

Chris (56:05.054)

upload as a podcast or sell as audio files to consulting or advising if he has expertise or unique experiences from his past he could offer consulting or advising services. This could be in the form of phone calls or video chats, which you can help set up three virtual assistant with Alexa skills. Since he's familiar with Alexa, he could potentially offer services as a virtual assistant, answering calls or managing schedules with your assistance and setting it up for online service.

Chris (56:58.363)

So anyways, like this stuff like this is like, and I'm just trying to think of something

applicable or somewhat random. But I've gone on and said like, we wanna go on an RV trip to Georgia cause I have a conference. Come up with an itinerary for me and my family that has four kids and likes natural wonders for the trip. And it spits out a itinerary for the trip. Or like, write me a resignation letter for my job that I can send to my boss. And then I'll write a letter or like. Like literally anything that you, any question that you have,

it and then it will go do research on the internet and then it will summarize that and put it into... Ask them if there's an eye doctor at Spokane that will operate on your eyes.

Chris (57:52.162)

Say that I got partial vision but. Uh-huh. So we'll say.

Chris (58:01.954)

Do you know what disease or what is wrong with the eyes? Well, I think my right eye, I think there's blood in the back of it. And they say anything that covers the back, then you can't see. OK. So you don't know what the diagnosis is? No, no.

And my left eye, every time I go in there, he gets that needle and he shoots something in my eye, but it don't seem to make it any better. But at least I'm holding my own. Yeah. And you can still see, like, when you're watching a game, can you see the game out of your left eye? Yeah.

Yeah, but I got to get up there about where your backpack is. Yeah. And can you see scores and stuff? Yeah. You can? Yeah. And on this TV, I can. On this one in there, I can't. I got to get right up close to it to see the score. And then if you close your left eye, you see nothing on the right.

No, no nothing. Do you even see light or anything or it's just darkness? You can see light. And once in a while, I kind of check myself. And I can see that table once in a while, see that doorway. Once in a while, I can do that. Interesting. OK. All right.

Chris (59:35.198)

My grandpa who is 96 is blind or mostly blind in his right eye period. He is not quite sure what the diagnosis is but it is something to do with blood being in the back of his eye that is preventing him from seeing anything out of his right eye. What do you know of possible or potential treatments to restore vision that are... Ask him if there's a doctor in Spokane that will do it. Well first I'll say

It'll tell us what is possible.

Chris (01:00:25.03)

One, anti-VEG-Gef therapy. This is used primarily for conditions like wet age-related macular degeneration, AMD, where abnormal blood vessels grow under the retina and leak blood or fluid. Anti-VEG drugs are injected into the eye to reduce vessel growth and leakage. Two, laser therapy. Depending on the condition, laser treatment can sometimes be used to seal leaking blood vessels or to destroy abnormal vessels. Three, vitrectomy. For certain conditions like vitreous hemorrhage,

Chris (01:01:07.334)

Four, stem cell therapy. There's ongoing research into using stem cells to repair or regenerate damaged retinal cells. This is still largely experimental, but has shown promise for various retinal diseases. Five, bionic eye implants. Some conditions leading to severe vision loss or blindness. There's research. Would you think them doctors in Spokane know what's got the same? Information? Yeah. Maybe, it depends. Things with doctors though is like, any doctor knows how to do what they

were trained to do. So depending on if they're like a researcher or just a doctor that's doing what they've done for a long time. And he said something about blood vessels on the retina? Something like that, yeah. Well they operated on my retina. The guy in Corleane, I think he's the one that broke it, you know, and then he says that he's gonna send me to Spokane and they're gonna operate on me.

Well, he did, the guy in Spokane. Yeah. Yeah, my thought would be that it's probably, if they're, I don't, I would be curious to know what the actual, like what do the doctors say is actually wrong? Because then you could do research on that particular thing. They never really, they don't have a specific diagnosis? No, well, they do, they never told me. Yeah. You know, he says,

The last time he stuck that needle in my eye, he says, I think this might get you, so you might be able to see a little better. But it never. Yeah, my thought is that there's always the internet in particular, if you know what you're searching for, like if we had the specific terms and diagnoses and stuff that someone had,

It's still, I would say realistically, it's probably unlikely that there's some crazy thing that these doctors don't know about, right? Oh, yeah. It's unlikely that there is, but if there is some researcher or someone that's doing something experimental, the thing that's amazing about the internet is that if they post an article online and we know the keywords that we're looking for, the internet can help identify the article and bring up that article that we're searching for.

Chris (01:03:30.768)

person on the earth that's doing that thing, and it would probably be some experimental thing that they don't know the results of or whatever, but it also could be something that they've already done a hundred times and they need to do another 300 or 400 times before they can... But that's the thing is that you'd have to... I don't know if you can get...

additional information from the doctors, but if you were to call them and find out like what is the names of the... Or what... Because they have to diagnose you with something because they wouldn't just be treating you if they had no idea what it was, you know? So they have to have theories of like... You got to be some reason you're sticking that needle in my... Exactly, yeah.

So he has whatever that is, I would say it would make me wonder, is there something else? And again, probably unlikely, but it's always interesting to, you know, that's what I think is so amazing about the Internet is like, what else? Just like there's so much stuff that

People are developing new technology all the time that even like the last thing that it said was bionic implants, like an artificial eye. People are working on that and who knows how effective it is, but it's like, I don't know. There's also like Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla. He's working. He has another business that's called, I'm spacing on the name of it.

Chris (01:05:02.866)

It's basically where he's trying, he's creating an implant that goes in your brain that would allow you, like people that are paralyzed, they'd be able to use their arms again because the implant would take the brain signals and convert it over to your nerves You gotta know what cell in their brain knows Exactly

So that's what they're researching. Yeah. So and they in the things that go, they implant like a thousand little wires that are all like a hundredth of the size of your hair. So they're really fine. They just implant this thing into your brain and then they're just monitoring brain activity. And right now they're like doing it with pigs and stuff like that, you know. But you got to imagine in like 10 years, 20 years, they probably figure something out, you know.

they're doing it is they hook up all these things to the brain and then they tell people that are able to move, hey, move your arm. And then they just watch the activity in the brain to learn how the brain's telling the body what to do. And then they take that information and put it into someone that can't move, like, hey, move your arm. You know what I mean? So it's like a, it's still, I don't even understand it. I'm just saying that the technology is always evolving in crazy.

stuff is happening, so who knows what is possible. But yeah, the AI stuff is crazy because it now creates like images, you could say like create a picture of a, I'm trying to think of a really absurd thing. Like show me, this will be crazy too.

Chris (01:06:51.31)

Show me a picture of a lion and a zebra eating ice cream in the middle of a restaurant and make it look realistic.

Chris (01:07:08.29)

So it does all sorts of crazy stuff where it will generate whatever ridiculous prompt you can imagine. It will make an image of what you asked it to do, even if it was something as weird as that and it will show you a picture of what you... So can you see that very well? It's a unique blend of the wild and the civil... Not really. At the bottom here. Yeah, I see that. Can you see that very well? I can just barely make it out.

Let me see if I can make this. It sounds like the image might not be clear enough.

Chris (01:07:49.519)

So can you see that one? That's just the lion.

Chris (01:07:55.547)

Yeah.

Isn't that crazy? Yeah. And then over here is the zebra. It shows the lion zebra in the restaurant setting. And there's another two pictures. You can check out the images in our conversation history. Oh, we damn. But it's the that's the thing is that it's crazy. You can say, like, yeah, make this random thing. And the computer just generates that image, you know, I had it. I gave an Ellie were wanting to do coloring books. So I had it generate some coloring books with like some guys with.

laser blasters and they're fighting each other because Gabe wanted to draw something with guns. So, yeah, it's pretty nuts. Oh, we damn.